It was lunchtime as we took shelter from the blistering heat of downtown Iloilo and crammed ourselves inside a cab. We just came from La Paz Market to have a bowl of authentic batchoy from Netong’s and a cup of Ilonggo coffee at Madge Café.

With still no rest from our early Tigerair flight from Manila, we decided to lie down a bit and enjoy our hotel of choice, Days Hotel Iloilo.

It was surprising to find Days Hotel Iloilo located inside a mall, the Atrium Mall to be exact. It’s actually the perfect location due to its proximity to many of Iloilo City’s tourist spots.

The hotel occupies the upper portion of the building which has a separate elevator access; security and privacy isn’t really a problem. The lift opens up to the hotel’s spacious lobby where their courteous staff never failed to greet us.

One might suppose it weird for a hotel to be located above a mall, but actually it works quite well, especially for travelers. The supermarket is literally just an elevator away if you need something, and you’d never run out of food places, especially if you’re not in the mood to go all the way downtown.

Days Hotel Iloilo provided us a modernly-done Twin Bedroom (Php5,400.00 breakfast included) which is quite spacious even for two occupants. Well, it’s really designed to bed four people, but we’re special like that.

It comes with the standard flatscreen cable TV, a land phone, safety deposit box and a mini-bar. Complimentary Wi-Fi is also provided, which is something us bloggers cannot live without.

The bathroom, which is also quite spacious, is absolutely clean. The shower area is divided from the water closet by a closable glass wall which I prefer to icky shower curtains. But the thing I like the most about it is their rain-type shower head; pure soothing relief from a whole day of walking around.

The room we were staying in doesn’t have a veranda, but I saw plenty of lounge areas around the lobby and hallways to laze around in if you tire of your own bed (which is impossible, by the way, since they are so soft and comfortable).

The entire floors of Days Inn Iloilo wraps around the atrium of the mall below, so it looks open enough not to be stifling.

We were barely in our room but it didn’t take ten minutes before we were being called out again. Lunchtime they said. Well, we were still batchoy-full, but why not.

We were then herded into The Promenade, Days Hotel Ilolilo’s in-house restaurant. Their International Lunch Buffet is currently abuzz and we dug in with the rest of the diners.

While everyone was raving about their Mongolian Barbecue, I was having a ball with their fish balls. Of course it’s not your ordinary street fare, but something much meatier and coated with a sweet sauce.

You can tell that I’m a street food guy even on a buffet filled with seven different rich-people dishes.

To cap the buffet, everyone headed to the desserts section. While I’m not that inclined to follow suit, not having a sweet tooth and all, I still tried their brownies, some sort of cake and a mini-glass filled with tapiocas and white stuff. Err, I think they’re tapiocas.

Okay, see? I’m really not the best person to ask when it comes to sweet stuff haha.

And after filling our tummies to bursting once more with Days Inn Iloilo’s buffet, it was finally time to rest. Back to bed! Siesta time!